THE CRITICALITY AND SUPPORT OF E-MAIL

This survey has now been closed. You may still take a look at the questuions below and even submit answers if you wish, but they will not be incorporated into the published results.

INTRODUCTION

A few weeks ago, we asked readers for their opinions on various different communication and collaboration mechanisms and we heard loud and clear that e-mail was regarded as business critical by the majority.

Following on from this, we would like to drill into the use of e-mail for specific purposes in a bit more depth, and pick up on some of the detail of how e-mail systems are delivered and supported. There are a mixture of both business and technical questions in here, which we could not avoid to form a comprehensive picture of what's going on, so just skip the bits you are not comfortable answering.

Thanks in advance for your help and patience. We will report back as usual once all the results have been gathered and analysed.

1. USE OF E-MAIL IN THE SALES PROCESS

1.1 How important is e-mail in communicating with your customers and prospects?

A: Critical

B: Important

C: Useful

D: Not important

E: Unsure

1.2 Does your company actually take orders by e-mail?

A: Yes

B: No

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C: Unsure

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1.3 If yes, what percentage of your orders would you say are taken over e-mail?

We are trying to calculate the importance email has in contributing to sales revenues, so it would be helpful if you could give us the approximate sales revenue for the part of the business you are referring to when answering the previous two questions. If you don't know or don't want to give this information, just skip this question and move onto the next one.

1.4 Approximate sales revenue per year.

1.5 If your e-mail systems went down, how long would it be before the sales side of your business was significantly impacted?

A: 10 minutes or less

B: One hour

C: Half a day

D: One day

E: One week

F: One month

G: Unsure/not relevant

1.6 How would you describe the impact on your sales capability of e-mail being down for one day?

A: Devastating

B: Highly damaging, lost revenue could not be recovered

C: Painful but lost revenue would be recoverable

D: Inconvenient

E: Little or no impact

F: Unsure/not relevant

1.7 What if e-mail was not available or highly unreliable for a week? What would the impact of that be on your sales capability?

A: Devastating

B: Highly damaging, lost revenue could not be recovered

C: Painful but lost revenue would be recoverable

D: Inconvenient

E: Little or no impact

F: Unsure/not relevant

USE OF E-MAIL FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE

2.1 How important is e-mail to customer relationship management and customer service?

A: Critical

B: Important

C: Useful

D: Not important

E: Unsure/not relevant

2.2 Do you make use of e-mail to provide after sales service to your customers - product support, order and delivery inquiries, complaints etc?

A: Yes

B: No

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C: Unsure

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2.3 What percentage of customer service cases or calls would you estimate are managed by e-mail?

2.4 If your e-mail systems went down, how long would it be before customer satisfaction was significantly impacted?

A: 10 minutes or less

B: One hour

C: Half a day

D: One day

E: One week

F: One month

G: Unsure/not relevant

DELIVERING THE EMAIL SERVICE

3.1 When did you implement your email server environment or last apply a major version upgrade to it?

A: It's a currently or imminent activity

B: Within the last 6 months

C: Within the last year

D: Over a year ago

E: Unsure

3.2 Who implemented your existing email systems or conducted the last major upgrade to them?

A: Not relevant, we use an ISP service for email

B: The service provider who hosts our email servers

C: We did it ourselves, using in house resources

D: The reseller who provided the software/servers

E: A vendor who provided the software or servers

F: A systems integrator, with any software/servers sourced separately

G: Other, please specify

3.3 If you used a third party to implement your email systems or the last major upgrade, how satisfied were you with their skills and expertise?

A: They did a good job

B: They did OK, but it could have been better

C: We had significant problems, but got there in the end

D: We were badly let down

E: Not relevant - we did not use a 3rd party

F: Unsure

3.4 Again, if you used a third party implementer, how satisfied are you that you received value for money?

A: Very satisfied

B: Just about acceptable

C: Not very satisfied

D: Extremely unhappy

E: Not relevant - we did not use a 3rd party

F: Unsure

3.5 Overall, regardless of whether the implementation or upgrade was executed internally or externally, how would you rate the level of hassle and cost compared to what you expected?

A: Much higher than anticipated

B: Somewhat higher than anticipated

C: About the same

D: Somewhat lower than anticipated

E: Much lower than anticipated

F: Unsure

3.6 How important is it to maintain in-house expertise to manage and support your e-mail systems?

A: Critical

B: Important

C: Nice to have but not necessary

D: Not relevant (e.g. we outsource)

E: Unsure

3.7 When problems with e-mail availability occur, how quickly is the IT department expected to respond? (we are talking about response times here rather than time to fix)

A: Immediately, e-mail down is treated as top priority

B: Within 10 minutes, e-mail down is high priority

C: Within 30 minutes

D: Within one hour

E: Within half a day

F: Longer

G: No SLA or expectation

3.8 How important is it to maintain up-to-date support and maintenance contracts on email systems to ensure you have the right level of backup from suppliers when things go wrong?

A: Critical

B: Important

C: Nice to have but not necessary

D: Not relevant (bundled part of overall service contract)

E: Unsure

3.9 Would you regard patch management as critical to maintaining a stable, reliable and secure email service?

A: Yes

B: No

C: Unsure

E-MAIL PLATFORM VERSIONS AND MIGRATION

4.1 Which of the following types of email server do you use? (Please tick all that apply)

A: Exchange 2003

B: Exchange 2000

C: Exchange 5.5

D: Older Exchange Version

E: Domino 6.5

F: Domino 6.0

G: Domino 5.x

H: Older Domino Version

I: Other, please specify

4.2 Which of the following would you regard as your standard e-mail server platform moving forward?

A: No standard

B: Exchange 2003

C: Exchange 2000

D: Exchange 5.5

E: Older Exchange Version

F: Domino 6.5

G: Domino 6.0

H: Domino 5.x

I: Older Domino Version

J: Other, please specify

K: No dominant standard

4.3 How would you rate the following benefits or potential benefits of moving to the latest release of the email server(s) you use? (Rate 1-5 where 1=No benefit & 5=Major benefit)

More efficient management

1 - No benefit

5 - Major benefit

Improved performance and scalability

1 - No benefit

5 - Major benefit

Improved robustness and reliability

1 - No benefit

5 - Major benefit

Better hardware economy

1 - No benefit

5 - Major benefit

Longevity of support from supplier

1 - No benefit

5 - Major benefit

Enhanced functionality for users

1 - No benefit

5 - Major benefit

Better integration with other software

1 - No benefit

5 - Major benefit

Better support for mobile email

1 - No benefit

5 - Major benefit

4.4 On this last point, does having a mobile email device make senior business managers more aware of and sensitive to email downtime?

A: Yes

B: Not especially

C: Unsure

D: Not relevant - we haven't implemented mobile email

4.5 How would you characterise the move to the latest release of your e-mail platform, either based on actual experience or what you would anticipate?

A: Very straightforward

B: Involved but quite manageable

C: Complex and difficult

D: Extremely hard

E: Unsure

F: Not relevant - likely to switch platforms

4.6 If you are likely to switch platforms, what are you considering moving to?

A: No switch planned

B: Exchange

C: Domino

D: Other, please specify

E: Unsure

4.7 What specifically would you regard as the key challenges associated with migrating to the latest release of your email platform(s)? (Rate 1-5 where 1=No issue & 5=Major issue)

Lack of time, e.g. other competing projects

1 - No issue

5 - Major issue

Difficulty making the business case

1 - No issue

5 - Major issue

Lack of internal expertise

1 - No issue

5 - Major issue

Securing adequate support from suppliers

1 - No issue

5 - Major issue

Challenges keeping costs under control

1 - No issue

5 - Major issue

Maintaining service levels to users during the migration

1 - No issue

5 - Major issue

YOUR FINAL THOUGHTS

5.1 As a final request on this topic, we would appreciate any additional thoughts you might have on e-mail use and e-mail platform migration as we are bound to have missed some important considerations and issues.

BEFORE YOU GO...

This survey is anonymous, but it is useful to have a bit of information about you so we can compare and contrast answers from readers who are in different circumstances. We would therefore be grateful if you could provide us with a few last pieces of information

9.1 How many people work in your organisation?

A: 0-49 employees

B: 50-249 employees

C: 250-999 employees

D: 1,000-4,999 employees

E: 5000+ employees

9.2 What type of organisation is it?

A: Private Sector (non-IT)

B: Private Sector (IT related)

C: Public Sector

D: Academic Establishment

E: Other, please specify

9.3 Which geographic region are you based in?

A: Europe (United Kingdom)

B: Europe (Other)

C: North America (USA/Canada)

D: Other, please specify

9.4 Which of the following best describes your role in the organisation?

A: IT Management

B: IT Practitioner

C: Business Management

D: Business Professional

E: Other, please specify